


The Winding Roads

by galentines



Category: The Civil Wars (Band)
Genre: EMOTIONAL ADULTRY GASP, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-02
Updated: 2017-10-02
Packaged: 2019-01-08 08:57:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12251154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galentines/pseuds/galentines
Summary: Joy, John Paul, and a tour bus.





	The Winding Roads

**Author's Note:**

  * For [atrata](https://archiveofourown.org/users/atrata/gifts).



> You can thank/blame atrata for this one. Thanks as always to Ashley for the beta. Nothing like a band that broke up three years ago to get you to write fic again? 
> 
> Title from "My Father's Father" by The Civil Wars.

Sometimes the camera makes him feel weird, but his smile is genuine. He can tell hers is too. 

Eventually, Allister turns the camera off and shuffles to a different corner of the bus to get settled. 

“You a top bunk or bottom bunk kind of guy?” Joy asks, a playful sparkle in her eye. Her hand sweeps out to the small bunk beds, the narrowest of walkways separating them. 

John Paul hopes she can’t hear him gulp. 

He learns she takes top bunk, even when Nate announces that he gets less carsick on the bottom. When John questions this, Joy simply shrugs. 

“He won’t always be here. And what’s the point of bunks if you sleep on the bottom? Then it’s just a regular bed.”

His knees already ache in anticipation of joining her. And he will, of course, be joining her. She practically begged. 

“It’ll be like summer camp,” she said. 

John definitely never went to camp and shacked up with a beautiful duet partner, her husband, and a half-dozen people on their payroll, but sure. Just like summer camp.

\---

She’s been waking up with the sun since being a little girl in California, watching the tendrils of light peak above the mountains. 

She’s already well versed in morning John Paul at this point, having shared many a cramped van ride at 4am, but it never fails to make her chuckle. 

“Coffee,” is all he mumbles, but he can’t even get the machine to work right. The bus hits a small bump in the road, and he spills water all down his front. 

“You are just a mess,” she deadpans. She loves needling him, pushing at that gruff exterior until a smile cracks. And after he stares her down, she gets her reward. “Shoo, shoo, I’ll figure this out.”

She pushes his hands away and begins preparing a pot, already knowing how he likes it.

She already knows a lot, and still, something about the bus is exciting and new. Different.

\---

She’s giddy, every single night, all through the spring tour. They leave the bars and Joy, starry-eyed, recounts the magic of the show that just ended. She stretches out on benches or kicks empty beer cups around, tugs on his sleeves until he joins in. They recount when the audience was most receptive, when one of them hit a particularly good note, when their harmonies blended most seamlessly. Whatever dumb bit made the audience laugh the most.

The light doesn’t leave her eyes as they take turns getting ready for bed, waiting for the bathroom and emerging in plaid flannel and old t-shirts. He steals glances across the aisle, before their curtains are closed for the night. Her smile, her humming, her foot always tapping to some melody in her head. 

She’s magic. It’s been two years now, since that first time their voices mingled. And it never fades away. 

\---

Some nights, Joy gets restless. When the tires don’t agree with the highways, or the merch guy is two bunks away watching a movie with the volume blaring, or Alli stays up in the kitchen editing until the morning hours. Those are the nights where she creeps open her curtain, texting him emojis of silly faces until his head pokes out from his bunk. 

He always answers, even as he pretends it’s an inconvenience. She can always catch the glimmer in his eyes. 

“What this time?” he asks, keeping his voice down. That’s when the grit enters his voice, always sending a little shiver down her spine. 

“Are we driving over a pumpkin patch or something?”

“Just a lovely stretch of Appalachian highway, m’dear.”

Always banal, meaningless conversation, but he humors her nonetheless. Sometimes she laughs so hard she hides her face in her pillow, pointing down at sleeping Nate below her. 

John Paul always excuses himself when that happens. 

\---

Sometimes everyone is asleep before them. John Paul will nurse a beer and twiddle with the guitar strings in the back lounge while she curls up like a cat next to him, humming until some new melody enchants them. 

It’s easy to forget the other six, seven people in the vehicle. It’s just them and the highway, stretching out across fields, glimmering under stars and moon and streetlights. 

The hours will drag deliciously, until she plucks the guitar from his hands and orders him to bed, even as she scribbles a new set of lyrics onto her notepad. 

And if they fall asleep right there, slumped toward each other with the guitar in the middle, everyone has enough grace to not mention it. 

Thank fuck. 

\---

Summer is full of laughter, tipsy evenings, and a rotating road family. 

And in the fall, they settle into routine, playing house on wheels and acting as though it’s all so innocently normal. 

John pretends not to notice when Joy starts reaching for waste baskets in the early hours of the morning. They plow forward. 

\---

A new year passes. They celebrate, solidify new tour dates, prepare for the Grammys. And by then, it’s undeniable that a new passenger is on the way. 

She sleeps longer, now. He rarely hears her curtain swish to the side, waiting for him to discuss her dreams. She’s up after him, reaching into the fridge for green juice while someone else handles the coffee. She yawns as they try to write, and he’s the one nudging her toward the beds. 

She’s beautiful, she’s glowing, and it’s the same but it’s... not. 

After a few months, she’s forced to the bottom bunk. 

She doesn’t ask him to follow her. 

\---

She names the baby Miles for a reason, and she loves everything about it. Loves cradling him in her arms as the countryside whizzes past. Loves squeezing him between herself and Nate in a little bunk, counting his fingers and toes over and over like he might lose them. Loves the idea of her son visiting every state and a handful of countries before he hits kindergarten. 

And thank the lord for John Paul. She knows she would go insane without the guidance, the experience. He wakes at all hours of the night, mumbling sleepy suggestions about how to get Miles back to sleep. He could walk Nate through diaper changing with his eyes closed. Hell, he’s better at burping her own son than she is. 

And those twilight hours, passing Miles back and forth while rocking him, they’re almost like the nights with the guitar. Just them and the road, figuring things out and working together. Talking, following ideas down winding paths.

Except it isn’t the same, at all. No matter how often Joy tries to tell herself it is. It’s stilted, it’s hushed. They’re always on eggshells. 

Once Miles falls asleep, John always passes him off. He’ll pat her on the shoulder and head back to his bunk. His smile won’t meet his eyes. 

\---

In Europe, they don’t discuss bunks. Their bus here has a room, specifically for the Williams family to enjoy. It has a crib and everything, the perfect little area to raise a baby on wheels. 

John Paul takes the farthest bunk possible. 

He makes his own coffee. He picks at his guitar and heads to bed at a reasonable hour. He sleeps fully through the night, from the moment his head hits the pillow until his alarm or the cries of a six month old wake him. 

Sometimes he’ll hand Joy a bottle of formula, if he’s closest to the fridge. She grins, she thanks him. She still giggles and brushes her hand against his arm. She tries, really tries. He can tell. 

He never fully unpacks. 

\---

When the last bows have been taken and she thinks her eyes might dry, she manages to make it back onto the bus. His things are gone. 

She tells Nate she needs a hotel for the night.


End file.
